Sociolinguistic Variation in Seventeenth-Century France

Ayres-Bennett, Wendy

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511486630

Cited by 116 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…In what follows we attempt to compare our results with those for earlier representations of (spoken) French. Caution is needed in interpreting data for earlier stages of the language, as researchers such as Ayres-Bennett (2004) and Lodge (2004) discuss in detail. For instance, grammatical commentary is aimed at upper class speakers, or, perhaps more correctly, those aspiring to the upper class: it is most useful when it is proscribing particular usage where we may infer that the latter is actually representative of vernacular speech and thus to be avoided.…”

Section: Passé Composé Vs Imparfaitmentioning

confidence: 99%

New insights on an old rivalry: Thepassé simpleand thepassé composéin spoken Acadian French

Comeau¹,

King²,

Butler³

2012

French Language Studies

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This study investigates the expression of past temporal reference in a highly conservative variety of Acadian French spoken in the Baie Sainte-Marie region of Nova Scotia, Canada. Variationist analysis of data from a sociolinguistic corpus for the village of Grosses Coques reveals a split between narrative and conversational discourse, with variation mainly between use of the passé simple and the imparfait in the former and between the passé composé and the imparfait in the latter. The passé simple remains in robust use in this variety and is constrained in a manner similar to that found in 17th-century representations of colloquial speech involving narration.

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Section: Passé Composé Vs Imparfaitmentioning

confidence: 99%

New insights on an old rivalry: Thepassé simpleand thepassé composéin spoken Acadian French

Comeau¹,

King²,

Butler³

2012

French Language Studies

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“…Henceforth, the greatest danger was change, which could only constitute corruption (e.g. Ayres-Bennett 2004), and grammarians undertook to prevent it. As far as usage is concerned, they of course failed, but the prescriptive grammar of French is considered to have remained highly conservative (e.g.…”

Section: The Legacy Of the French Grammatical Traditionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Searching for standard French: The construction and mining of the Recueil historique des grammaires du français

Poplack

Jarmasz²,

Dion

et al. 2015

Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics

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This paper describes a massive project to characterize "Standard French" by constructing and mining the Recueil historique des grammaires du français (RHGF), a corpus of grammars whose prescriptive dictates we interpret as representing the evolution of the standard over five centuries. Its originality lies in the possibility it affords to ascertain the existence of prior variability, date it, and determine the conditions under which grammarians accept or condemn variant uses. Systematic meta-analyses of the RHGF reveal that grammarians rarely acknowledge the existence of alternate ways of expressing the same thing. Instead, they adopt three major strategies to establish form-function symmetry. All involve partitioning competing variants across distinct social, semantic or linguistic contexts, despite pervasive disagreement over which variant to associate with which. This effectively factors out variability. In contrast, systematic analysis of actual language use, as instantiated in the spontaneous speech of 323 speakers of Quebec French over an apparent-time period of a century and a half, reveals robust variability, regularly conditioned by contextual elements which have never been acknowledged by grammarians. This conditioning has remained largely stable since at least the mid-nineteenth century. Taken together, these results indicate that the "rules" for variant selection promulgated by grammarians do not inform the spoken language, nor do grammars take account of the variable rules structuring spontaneous speech. As a result, grammar and usage are evolving independently.

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“…Nevalainen and Raumolin -Brunberg 2003, Ayres -Bennett 2004, Lodge 2004, Nobels and Van der Wal 2009; extensive social network studies were carried out (Bergs 2005, Sairio 2009 ); and code -switching research gained ground Pahta 2004 , Schendl andWright 2011 ). Variationist sociolinguistic work, both quantitative and qualitative, continued across languages (e.g.…”

Section: The Fi Rst T Hree D Ecadesmentioning

confidence: 99%